Nueva Zelanda: Gareth Morgan’s party tackles ‘obsession’ with school testing in education policy

Nueva Zelanda/Febrero de 2017/Fuente: Stuff

RESUMEN: El partido político del economista Gareth Morgan tiene  la escuela en su mira, prometiendo abordar la «obsesión de Nueva Zelanda con el ranking de nuestros hijos» cortando el uso de las Normas Nacionales y el sistema NCEA. El Partido de Oportunidades de Morgan también se ha comprometido a introducir la educación de la primera infancia (ECE) gratuita y universal a tiempo completo en su recién estrenada política educativa. Si bien Nueva Zelanda se ha desempeñado bien en las encuestas de educación internacional, Morgan dijo que el país había comenzado a quedarse atrás en los últimos años.

Economist Gareth Morgan’s political party has school testing in its sights, pledging to tackle New Zealand’s «obsession with ranking our children» by slashing the use of National Standards and the NCEA system.

Morgan’s The Opportunities Party has also pledged to introduce free, universal full-time early childhood education (ECE) in its newly released education policy.

While New Zealand had performed well in international education surveys, Morgan said the country had started to fall behind in recent years.

While white, middle- and upper-class Kiwi kids had «some of the best education outcomes in the world», those on the margins of society were being left behind.

«Some children, generally those from poorer backgrounds, come to school around two years behind, and most of those never catch up despite the best efforts of the education system.»

While it was natural for parents and politicians to want to hold teachers and students to account through testing, Morgan said «the evidence shows we are using up way too much precious learning time assessing our children.

«We are obsessed with assessing and ranking our children when test results can only show part of a child’s development.

«Our obsession with ranking all our children takes up time and resource, and is counterproductive to helping them all find their strengths.»

Assessment scores were a questionable method to measure student learning and a «downright awful» indicator of school performance, Morgan said.

His party would delay national standards until Year 6, instead of Year 1 as at present.

It would also slash NCEA testing for high school students, giving those in their final year of school the choice of sitting NCEA Level 1, 2 or 3.

«The extra time would be spent on learning and developing individual learning plans to ensure that students have the qualifications and skills they will need.»

Morgan said the party would also scrap the publishing of national standards and NCEA results, «unless they can be translated into true ‘added value’ results».

Morgan said ECE needed to be more of a priority, as investing in children at an early age led to the best chance of success.

The Government’s «scattergun» approach to funding ECE meant some families still struggled to find affordable childcare, he said.

«Over time, we would like to see high-quality, free, universal full-time ECE for children aged three years and over.»

The party’s education policy also included allowing schools in one region to merge administrative functions and save money, encouraging people to use their local school, and carrying out a review of the tertiary education sector.

Fuente: http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/education/89568219/gareth-morgans-party-tackles-obsession-with-school-testing-in-education-policy